Tesla Sold 1,800 Model S Sedans In California In Q4, Just Over 8,300 For Year

1 In Every 205 Vehicles Sold In California-Based Tesla Was A Model S in 2013

The data for California vehicle registrations for the fourth quarter is now in. And this data gives us a initial look at how Tesla has done in the state, and really in the US in general to end out the year ahead of earnings next week.

New EV registrations in Netherlands For 2013 – Most Of Which Coming In Q4 For Tesla

For the October to December timeframe CNCDA (California New Car Dealers Association) reports that Tesla sold 1,793 vehicles in their state in Q4, and overall the company moved 8,347 cars for the year.

Traditionally, almost half of Tesla’s US sales are California based, so the 1,793 registrations does illustrate how Tesla focused on Europe in the last quarter of 2013 – especially given the pressure to deliver in places like the Netherlands with tax incentives expiring at year’s end.

There are lots of plausible explanations for the CA numbers. I think Jay is correct. Though, saturation of the CA market is real possibility. Still, international expansion gives a lot of headroom for Tesla sales. It also appears that lead time for delivery has kept constant meaning that they aren’t eating into their backlog.

Every time sales are down, it’s because Tesla somehow refused to sell cars there. Funny how that works. As for California, the lead times have been pretty constant for 9 months now: If you order a car for factory pickup, you get it in 4-6 weeks; add 2-3 weeks for delivery elsewhere in the US. That tells me that production has been increased in line with demand; not behind demand.

Market saturation is the least of Tesla’s problems and will be for many, many, years. By then the Gen 3/Model E. plus the Model X. will be out. I suppose that if you are predisposed to view all Tesla news items as negative, no matter how positive they may be, that you must, or more likely probably should, but most certainly will not, change your viewpoint. Extrapolating from that fact back to your opinions being relatively valueless in this regard, would not be a great leap of logic.

Looks like about 1800/qtr is natural demand rate for CA. First two quarters were still working off backlog. That’s roughly 22K annual demand for all US, assuming CA is about 1/3. Will be interesting to see where this goes in 2014. Would be great if Teslacan maintain this rate in US.

I know Tesla sees Europe as a little more than 1/2 US market but I think it could be similar or even better if they play their cards right. Canada should be 1/6-1/7 of US. Will also be very interesting to see how Asia region plays out. I think Tesla is playing it a little risky pushing China so hard when there are less risky growth opportunities out there. Big risk, big reward though.